NCERT Book Row : Blacklisted Academics Request Supreme Court To Hear Them

The three academics, who were blacklisted by the Supreme Court for writing a chapter on corruption in judiciary in the Class 8 Social Science textbook of the NCERT, appeared through their lawyers before the Court today, seeking an opportunity of hearing.

They have filed personal affidavits, explaining the context in which they wrote the chapter.

On March 26, the Court had barred the academics- Professor Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar - who were involved in the preparation of the controversial chapter, from associating with any future academic projects of public institutions. The Court had also passed strong adverse comments against them, observing that "they either do not have reasonable informed knowledge about the Indian Judiciary and/or they deliberately and knowingly have misrepresented the facts in order to project a negative image of the Indian Judiciary to students of Class 8."

Today, they appeared before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi in the suo motu case taken by the Court over the NCERT chapter.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, for Alok Prasanna Kumar, submitted that the comments of the Court have caused prejudice to them, and hence they have filed applications to explain their stance.

"Are you defending your actions?" CJI Kant asked.

"We are giving a context, and we are showing your lordships the new pedagogy that has come as per the National Education Policy, including other issues. Class 6, Class 7 textbooks do deal with issues faced by the legislature, executive and the Election Commission. The argument was that the judiciary was singled out. Those issues (affecting other institutions) have also been dealt with. We want to show your lordships the process. These are not fly-by-night persons. They are academicians with a lot of credibility. The author (Alok Prasanna) himself was an advocate and has appeared before this Court," Sankaranarayanan submitted.

Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, for Michel Dalino, submitted that he has filed an explanation. Senior Advocate J Sai Deepak appeared for Suparna Diwakar. Giving a summary of the explanation, Sai Deepak said, "The sum and substance of the application is that this was a collective process and no individual had the sole say or authority."

The bench directed the listing of the applications filed by them after the clearing of defects.

The bench also recorded the submission of the Union Government, represented by Addl Solicitor General KM Nataraj, that a committee comprising Justice (Retired) Indu Malhotra,  Senior Advocate KK Venugopal and Mr Prakash Singh,  Vice Chancellor of Garhwal University to review the contents of the revised chapter.  The committee will collaborate with the National Judicial Academy headed by Justice (retired) Aniruddha Bose.

The bench also noted that NCERT issued a notification dated April 2 reconstituting a high-powered committee for the preparation of the national syllabus and teacher learning material. The committee comprises 20 distinguished members, with M. C. Pant serving as its Chairman.